


Everything Else Fades Away, Unimportant in the Wake of Hosea

by Emby_M



Series: One Party, Three Views [3]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Bisexuality, Drag, Epiphanies, Headcanon-heavy, Lavish Parties, M/M, Two Idiots fall in love while one's boyfriend looks on in amusement, You're just going to have to read the notes on this one for the premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 19:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: "[He] is too entranced by the decolletage exposed by the gown, the Bernini-crafted sculpture of ivory skin, his collarbones, the sinuous line of his neck, the divot underneath his throat. How that divot would feel under his tongue springs to mind."-Dutch attends a party he shouldn't have, and realizes very suddenly and very strongly he's been in love with Hosea since they met.Part of a series of three. Read the others for Trelawny and Hosea's points of view.





	Everything Else Fades Away, Unimportant in the Wake of Hosea

**Author's Note:**

> The Premise:  
> See "Your Money or Your Life" for the full meeting backstory (the third version, after the page break).  
> \- Hosea and Dutch have been exceedingly close since their first meeting, despite Dutch's engagement to Susan Grimshaw and Hosea's continuing relationship with Josiah Trelawny & his marriage to Bessie Matthews.  
> \- Hosea and Bessie plan parties for the LGBTQ community where they live. The community is surprisingly extensive. Dutch fails to notice anything strange about a party with mostly same-gender couples.  
> \- Josiah and Susan both know Dutch is bi/pansexual, but neither Hosea nor Dutch know. Dutch thinks everyone's equally attracted to all genders.  
> \- Dutch is probably also polyamorous, which Susan knows. Dutch is confused by the idea and hasn't thought about it.  
> \- Dutch grew up in a pretty strict Dutch Protestant community in Philedelphia. His family was working class.  
> \- Dutch's first name is Pieter. He doesn't go by it much because it was his dad's name too.  
> \- Dutch has nervous tics + compulsions, and in modern day might be diagnosed with OCD and/or anxiety.  
> \- Hosea is in his thirties here, Trelawny and Dutch are in their twenties.  
> \- Dutch is around 6'5" (196 cm).
> 
> Hopefully that fills you in. If you have questions, feel free to ask. Kudos and comments are always appreciated!

It's a nice party.

Lots of folks. Lot of very pretty women. An equal number of pretty men.

There's a redhead who catches his eye, a freckly thing with a nice smile. A handsome kind of guy. He's blushing, vibrantly red, but keeping on with his conversation like he wasn't.

He wonders, a little, why Susan had asked him to come. Insisted, actually.

All these folks are rich. That much is obvious, especially the way he's dressed up -- all fancy suit and violet bowtie. Susan even combed his hair, smoothing the curls with macassar around his cheeks. Better than some of the new pomades, that left his hair shellacked.

It's a fancy kind of party, this beautiful ballroom with these delicate Tiffany glass windows. Chandeliers, the whole bit. Everyone drinking. Punch and champagne served freely and liberally.

It wasn't anything he was used to. Growing up an immigrant, working class -- no, never anything like this. At most, he'd known the staid, formal meetings with the other Dutch folk of Philedelphia -- rigidly Christian and notably unfun.

So why had she insisted he come -- and why alone? He loved her, loved the way she was, all spit-fire and sass. It's why they were going to be married. He would have loved to come here with her. She never missed an opportunity to get dolled up.

He's just kind of thinking, until someone taps him on the shoulder -- firmly, two-fingered, meaning something. The person walks away, not quickly, not rudely, but slips through the throng of people, as if the tap was a passing glance made physical.

He recognizes that cheekbone, the trim back, the tousled ginger-blonde hair.

"Mister Matthews?"

Hosea spins, shocked. "Mister Van der Linde?"

Hosea usually isn't that surprised to see him. Maybe it's the party. He'd heard -- from the people around -- that he was the host of the evening. They spoke nothing but loving words about him, which he found strange for a rich person's party.

But that was unsurprising. Hosea was likeable to the extreme, lovable, even. That gentle demeanor, hiding a little bit of heat and a bounteous competence -- he had grow very fond of it.

"I didn't think I'd see you tonight," he says, a smile coming to his face almost involuntarily. Hosea makes him smile, and he isn't quite sure why. Something about his posture, his charm.

"No, I didn't either," he breathes, "What are you doing here? You know this is a private occasion?"

He did, but the way he enunciates the word _private_  makes him wonder more deeply. Perhaps these folks were all Masons, or some fraternal order?

But then Trelawny is there, and he's sneaking an arm around Hosea's waist -- and Dutch finds himself chafing.

He likes Trelawny. He does, really. But when he's close to Hosea like that -- it bothers him.

"Oh, it is?" He says, laughing around the chafing, "Susan said there was a party I might be interested, wouldn't let me say no. So here I am."

He laughs a little, looking around at everyone. "Nice party, lots of lovely folk."

Hosea swallows and smiles. There's something off about his expression. "Oh, well, thank you. You haven't, uh, said anything to the women here, have you?"

Oh?

Perhaps they're all taken. Maybe they were all married couples here? But no, Trelawny's here and he's not married, as far as Dutch knows anyway. Couldn't be teachers, either -- although he has no idea what Trelawny does outside the thievery.

"Not yet, no. Nothing more than greetings-"

"You tapped him, ah, angel?" Trelawny chuckles, grabbing Hosea's hip and fondling it. The blush that spreads along Hosea's cheeks as a result makes him want to wring Trelawny's neck... but he doesn't know why.

"Tapped?" Dutch asks. Oh, the tap earlier. He stares down Trelawny, who smiles back at him like a fox.

"Oh sure," Hosea says, stutteringly laughing, "It's a thing we used to do at Yale."

Trelawny's touch sours him.

"What for?" he asks -- just wants to keep talking to Hosea. There's a feeling he has that if he lets Trelawny steer him away with that hand still on his hip... something would happen. He isn't sure what, but he feels that chafing get worse just thinking of it.

"Over there it's club membership, here it's..." Hosea stalls when he meets eyes with Trelawny, "invitations to an afterparty."

Oh no. An afterparty.

An image of wrenching the two apart flits across Dutch's thoughts. Whatever afterparty there was -- well, he'd be glad to go if it kept this chafing, moonshine-drinking feeling at bay.

"Sorry, dear, I thought you were someone else. So I'll have to rescind," Hosea says, smiling awkwardly.

Oh. No no. No no no.

"Why can't I come?" He blurts, and then, tempering it back from shock, "An afterparty sounds- fun."

"It's a-" and another glance at Trelawny, who smiles like a fox in a chicken coop, "It's for business!"

"I'm part of the business," he says, furrowing his brow. Or at least if he isn't, he wants to be.

"You aren't part of _this_  business, Dutchy," Trelawny drawls.

It's like he swallowed a whole lemon, that sour feeling in his throat.

"It's a bit like a symposium!" Hosea interjects, "Lots of... lots of things unsuitable for someone your age."

"Trelawny's younger than I am!" he spits, throwing his hand open, gesturing at Trelawny, who continues to smile insufferably.

"Trelawny is my partner, even if he's young!" Hosea throws back, and it's a punch to the gut. Apparently, the hurt shows on his face, because Hosea's voice softens, and he reaches up to pat Dutch's chest gently. "Sorry, Pieter, I can't have you coming to this. It's not your milieu."

"You're rescinding a tap, then?" Trelawny smiles.

"Yes, I am-" Hosea stops though, looking at Trelawny with wide, distraught eyes, "Oh _no_."

Hosea's hands come off Dutch's chest, and he's never missed a touch quite as much quite so immediately.

"Oh yes," chimes Trelawny, "You know the penalty for rescinding a tap."

He stares at the two of them, furrowing his brow. What on earth were they talking about?

Hosea sighs. What-

He gestures Dutch down, like he was going to whisper a secret in his ear, and so Dutch, of course, bends.

And then Hosea's face is close to his, very close indeed, the sharp line of his cheekbones enunciated in the twinkling light of the chandeliers.

And then Hosea presses a gentle kiss under his ear.

Dutch nearly falls into a coma. The feeling of his soft lips, just gentle -- he feels the shape of them, well-formed and just a little plush, softened by some sort of cream or something, the breath Hosea lets out, the warmth of it fanning across the tender skin of his neck. His whole consciousness is focused there, the rest of him forgotten with the sensation.

He manages -- somehow -- to get his eyes over to Hosea's face, which is red and vibrantly uncomfortable.

"There, that's half, then," he says, and then looks back to Dutch, who is frozen stock-still, "I'll be back soon, just have to go prepare the other half of the forfeit."

"Okay," he mumbles, vocal cords gone strange. The word barely forms.

Hosea smiles uncomfortably, regretfully, and reaches up to smooth his lapels along his chest. That touch, too, sings.

"You know, it's getting late..." Hosea says, quietly. Is he insinuating something?

Dutch would really like it if he was insinuating something. He has the urge to throw his arms around Hosea, kiss him silly, feel those lips against his, twine their fingers together, muss that neat hair -- he would like to, certainly.

He isn't really sure where the urge comes from, but he's never been in the habit of questioning these sorts of things before.

"..why don't you go home for the night, ah? Take a cab home and tuck into bed?"

He groans, "Sure."

His head swims.

He and Hosea, they had been -- friendly. He was grateful to the man. He'd saved his life, saved him. He'd fed and housed him, set him up with a job that gave him a fiancee in a woman he admired and loved very much.

And he hadn't paid attention to the feelings he feels now, as Hosea slips into a door with two women, this blooming warmth. The feeling of his heart rising upwards into his throat, choking him. He's struck dumb with the intensity of it all.

"Don't go, lad," Trelawny says, and Dutch straightens, suddenly unbothered by Trelawny's presence.

"Wasn't planning to," he says, breathing in deep like it was a new world.

But it wasn't. Oh god, it wasn't. And this suddenness of emotions, he realizes, is not sudden at all.

He remembers that warmth when Hosea smiled cockily at him, that first meeting where they nearly robbed each other -- the warmth of Hosea's bed, which he gladly gave up for Dutch's comfort. The smile that spread across his face at the look on Hosea's face when he recounted his first day of work with Susan, made up of so much pride and fondness, so unlike anything he'd had before.

Hosea was important.

The casual affection they shared, the easy way Hosea's hand dipped across his back, how a sleepy Hosea would bid him goodnight with a loose but warm embrace. The cups of tea he'd prepared, the sweet and somehow unpatronizing brush of his fingers through Dutch's curls, the easy way his fingers found the nape of Dutch's neck and scratched there, sweetly -

Hosea's kind words, his gentle compliments... all of it.

That kiss knocked his head loose.

He's in love with Hosea.

He's been in love with Hosea.

Trelawny says something else, but he doesn't notice, murmuring, "I'm getting a drink."

He wanders, ghost-like, through a crowd of folks.

Now that he looks -- there's an awful lot of people paired off, women with women, men with men. Not exclusively, but many more than he thinks is usual.

The thought makes him smile.

He gets a drink of punch -- and it's not strong, but it's certainly not weak.

That was it.

He loves Hosea.

He'd loved Hosea, seemingly unendingly. He has this feeling like, if he paid attention, their heartbeats were tied. That he could learn Hosea by heart -- know every in and out of him.

They're big, grandiose thoughts. Some logical part, the tiniest part of his psyche but occasionally the loudest, when it mattered, the loudest when he was anxious and knocking on every surface and religiously checking watches, notes that this was a lot to think suddenly, just from a kiss, and that these thoughts were almost silly in their proportion.

Well, it says it until Queen Mab arrives.

There's a hubbub from the crowd, and Pieter looks up from his drink.

And he's met with -

Well, Hosea's been transformed, albeit not that much from his usual grace and deportment. He walks through a parting crowd like Moses through water, with all the composure and dignity he would expect from a queen, his face glowing and very gently, tenderly rouged.

He's wearing this -- confection, almost, of chiffon and taffeta in this marvelous bluish-green, and his waist is neatly corseted. It's so slim, now, that Pieter could probably reach his hands back to himself if he embraced it.

But -- the charming part isn't any of that. It's all Hosea. The man he loves. Just Hosea's smile, his good cheer.

Everything else fades away, unimportant in the wake of Hosea.

He ascends to a stage, calling to the guests, "Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests! I appear to you now, the arbiter of good nights and joyful, cheerful throng, you delighted host," and here he pauses, his expression becoming mischievous, "the Fairy Queen Matthews!"

The crowd laughs, delighted -- maybe, anyway. Pieter is too entranced by the decolletage exposed by the gown, the Bernini-crafted sculpture of ivory skin, his collarbones, the sinuous line of his neck, the divot underneath his throat. How that divot would feel under his tongue springs to mind.

"Due to a grievous mistake, I've wounded an attendant of our lovely evening, and must now repay it with the form you see before you, and..."

Hosea smiles, a little shy, biting his lip just a little, cocking his head charmingly. And he extends a hand to Pieter.

"I owe him a dance, in return."

Oh.

Pieter's mind goes blank.

Like. Blank.

His mind hasn't gone blank, before.

No, it seemed from the moment he was conscious, his mind had always raced with thoughts -- anything, idle, terrible, terrifying.

But he is being pushed along by a small bastion of women, the drink taken from his hand and a very tall woman restyling his hair -- she looks a little like Hosea, but it's superficial.

A circle of party-goers had formed around them, giving them space to dance.

And then Hosea is there, before him.

"Sorry, dear," he says, when they're close enough, "Part of it all-"

"You look beautiful," Pieter breathes.

Hosea smiles, wide and bright.

The musicians start up with a strange, almost secretive, but distinctly lively song, and Hosea guides Pieter's hand to his waist, taking the other in his own.

"I don't know how to dance," he hisses, the images of his Mother gripping his shoulder and shaking her head when he broke into spontaneous dance still strong.

Hosea laughs, although not meanly. He carefully taps out the beat against Pieter's shoulder, murmuring, "Just follow me, just step in time. You'll do fine."

And he finds -- he does. When he lets Hosea guide him, when they step -- and it's easy to step along to that beat, this strange one-two- _three_ , and Hosea's smile is so charming, reddened prettily.

"I mean it, Hosea, you look magnificent in that," he says, lifting his hand and twirling Hosea beneath it.

"Thank you, dear," he giggles, spinning. His laughter is so sweet.

"Not that you looked bad before, though," he laughs too, "You're always so handsome."

And it is true. Hosea always looks lovely. A charming simplicity to his form, his garments.

Dutch guides his arm back, bringing Hosea intimately close, their faces inches from one another's.

Hosea looks surprised, but then it melts into this wonderfully coy smile.

God, that smile. He'd do anything for it.

Hosea steps back and leads them in a tizzying whirl, the two of them laughing heartily.

Despite how it feels, the song ends too soon. The crowd around them -- which he notices only now -- claps.

But his hand lingers on Hosea's bare arm, skimming the velvety skin of his inner arm, down across the delicate bluish veins at the base of his hand, along the bump of his slim wrist.

He thinks -- maybe -- he feels Hosea shiver.

But he doesn't say anything, now vibrantly giddy as he dips into a bow, murmuring, "My lady, Queen Matthews."


End file.
